Yemen Foils al-Qaida Plot

Published 8:00 pm, Tuesday, January 15, 2002

Militants of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida terror network plotted to attack the U.S. Embassy in San`a, a Yemeni Foreign Ministry official said Wednesday.

The U.S. Embassy suspended most consular services Monday, citing what it said were credible security threats. The suspension remains in effect.

The Yemeni official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told The Associated Press the government had received information from the United States that al-Qaida militants had contemplated carrying out an attack on the embassy.

The official did not say when the attack was to have taken place.

The Foreign Ministry official said the information received from the United States came from interrogations of a senior al-Qaida figure, Ibn Al-Shaykh al-Libi, who is in U.S. custody. Al-Libi is a Libyan who ran some of bin Laden's training camps. He was captured by Pakistan and turned over to U.S. authorities this month.

Asked about the alleged plot, a U.S. Embassy official in San`a refused to comment on Wednesday.

The Aden newspaper Al-Ayyam reported that one of the Yemeni al-Qaida militants detained by U.S. forces in Afghanistan and transferred to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, told American interrogators of a plot to blow up the U.S. Embassy in San`a. The privately owned newspaper said the plan called for detonating a truck loaded with a ton of explosives.

The newspaper said the information was relayed to Yemeni authorities, who "took stringent security measures to thwart the plot."

In response to the security alert, the main road in front of the embassy in the Yemeni capital was closed to vehicles and pedestrians, and there were increased police patrols around the compound. Police also stepped up security around U.S. companies and diplomatic homes in the country, Yemeni security officials have said.

Americans have faced threats in Yemen before, most recently in June 2001 when consular services at the embassy were suspended for a month. Yemen arrested eight people in connection with a plot to attack the building.

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In October 2000, an attack on a U.S. warship killed 17 sailors. The two suicide bombers attacked the destroyer USS Cole in the Yemeni port of Aden, detonating explosives in a small boat that drew up alongside the U.S. warship. The United States blames al-Qaida for the Cole bombing.